Disappointingly, since touching down in Bangkok 2 days ago I’ve sported an appetite similar in size to that of your average Saharan Gerbil. I’ve grazed on the odd chicken heart here and a plate veggies and rice there, but even then only because I felt like I had to eat rather than because I actually wanted to.

For me, that’s pretty wierd. In the normal turn of events (and those that already know me will fully appreciate this), you’d have more chance of separating your kids from a Rottweiler than you would of parting me from a bowl of noodle soup. Without wanting to exaggerate here, I’d take life for lesser reason.

Maybe it’s been the heat, or possibly the radical change of surroundings, I don’t know – but today, thankfully, my appetite went back through the roof. When I awoke this morning, had I not shown a Ghandi-esque level restraint and self-control, as sure as eggs is eggs I’d have been gnawing chunks out of the bedside cabinet even before I’d lit my first cigarette.

So, I thought, what better day than today to take myself off on a gastronomic tour of Bangkok’s avenues and alleyways. Armed with camera, compass, a fist full of Baht and a rumbling, cavernous belly to fill, I peeled left (or north, according to the compass) out of Thanon Rambutri and went in search of sustenance.

Stop 1: Breakfast.

The consummate power of nicotine never ceases to amaze and astound. Despite my rampant and unabated hunger pangs, I still opted for the usual breakfast: a big, black coffee and another 5 minutes ruthlessly shaved off my life. But rather than swing straight into one of the numerous cafe/restaurants in the immediate vicinity of Khao San Road, I wandered until I got to the first bridge outside the backpacker bubble (or, more accurately, until my affliction got the better of me.) 1 Small, grotty alleyway, 1 small, plumpish Thai lady and 3 big pots of net-filtered coffee. Jackpot.

When I set eyes on the heavily soiled, wire-rimmed mesh bags sat over the three battered aluminium pots, I knew I’d be in for a kick ass, don’t-let-me-sleep-till-sundown, proper cup of coffee. And I tell you what –I wasn’t wrong.

I ‘d never seen coffee made this way until a few years ago but, as far as I understand it, in many ways the mesh-and-pot setup is quite similar to the ‘normal’ kitchen worktop coffee machine (but without the hassle in Dixons when you go to buy it, the big shell of cash you lose when you pay for it, and, as an added bonus, this particular model comes with a fully manual, spoon orientated, strength control system fitted as standard.) Just fill up the mesh with ground coffee, pour boiling water through it, dunk it in the pot a few times and away you go. Now that’s what I call instant coffee.

And the best thing? It costs 10 Baht, approximately 30 cents, for a half pint glass full of some of the best coffee I’ve had in a long while. In your face, Starbucks.

Stop 2: Early Lunch

Breakfast today was late and lunch came quite early – the gap between the two being about 4 blocks (not that you really have uniform blocks here – either the town planner had missed out on his morning coffee or was too preoccupied with planning his early lunch to arrange streets with due diligence.)

Anyhow, with the coffee still working its way down and splashing on the base of my stomach lining, and my lungs still thanking the lord above that I didn’t opt for the longer, drawn out breakfast, I stumbled upon a strip of about 5 or six mobile noodle soup stalls. I knew I’d never make it past number six without pulling up a small, plastic stool at one of their street side tables so I checked each one out as I passed. I think I got to about stall number 4 before I started smiling scarily at one of the ladle swinging ladies and gleefully pointing at various strips of dead animal.

For me, at least, it usually comes down to potluck with the soups on street stalls. You see, with barbeques etc you can generally distinguish what the meat is by either its raw or cooked form as either one, or the other, or both are usually displayed either on or next to the pan or the coals. With soups, however, it’s always a little more difficult to tell - particularly when the chunky bits are half submerged in a steaming broth.
One great thing about eating in this way, though, is that you get to see your food being cooked right in front of you instead of it being done out of sight behind closed doors. You get to see your dish being constructed from scratch. No additional bogeys, or semen, just good, wholesome food. Paranoid? Me?

Anyway, back to today’s semen free soup. First, into the empty bowl went the noodles (from a choice of 4 or 5 different types ranging from threadlike glass noodles to approximately 1cm wide vermicelli-like ones), then some crunchy bits (I’ve no idea what they were, but welcome to my world), and finally a few teaspoons of this and half-ladles of that (all I know is that one of these came in at about 9.7 on the heat Richter scale.) As quick as that, the ‘dry part’ of the construction is complete.

I neglected to mention beforehand, but throughout the dry build we also have several different varieties of meat cooking up in the mother ship: the large, half dustbin sized pot of broth. These chunky bits were dropped into the bin at the very start of the build process. I couldn’t tell what they were before they went in - and neither could I when they emerged - but most were thin, quick cooking strips of meat with a few round balls tossed in for good measure. At least the balls were of the pre-processed variety, and thankfully not ‘au natural’. As for the taste and texture of the balls, imagine a full budget airline meal compressed into something the size of a marble and you won’t be a million miles off.

With construction complete, or so I thought, I then foolishly expected soup to join noodles, noodles to join soup and for me to embark on a string of faux-pas involving chopsticks and condiments - but we still had one completely unexpected, eyebrow raising ingredient still to add. Blood. Fresh, uncooked, gag reflex testing blood . After scooping up enough of the stuff to give a devil worshipper a stiffy, she then dipped the half-full ladle into the once clearish broth, subsequently filling it to the brim. The result was a kind of bitty, brownish, gloopy murk the likes of which I’ve not seen since eating an undercooked kebab during my stint in Morocco. It didn’t look any better when unleashed on a bowl of noodles either (the soup, that is.)

In went another ladle of broth and the deed was done. Thanking the vendor, I clutched the steaming bowl of nosh and scuttled along the pavement to the nearest stool and chair. I’m not going to say I hesitated because of the blood – that would be untrue – I went to work on it immediately. I was too hungry to be dilly dallying. In fact, I only dawdled long enough to drop in some extra bean sprouts and other random foliage already at the table.

So, was the soup good? Without a word of a lie, it’s one of the best clear(ish) broth soups I’ve ever had the good fortune to find. It was super. It even made the airline balls taste good. I don’t know if it was that good just because of the blood, but if it was, I’m seriously going to have to consider joining a really dodgy cult. What a meal.

Right, somehow I’ve managed to write over 2 pages about drinking a cup of coffee and eating a bowl of soup. God knows how long it’s going to take to tell you about the afternoon since it involved some impromptu Thai boxing, inexplicably getting caught up in a Thai family knees up, a full on schoolgirl cat fight and, best of all, another cracking bowl of soup.

More on that stuff another day, though.

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